Ronda Rousey admits she started having headaches at age 6: ‘Nobody talks about it’

Ronda Rousey isn’t taking the traditional path to retirement. The former UFC and WWE Champion is working on additional Hollywood projects in addition to her debut graphic novel, “Expecting the Unexpected.” But compared to the physical toll Rousey has endured throughout her life in martial arts, her new projects are labors of love.

Rousey made the full-time transition from UFC to WWE between 2016 and 2018. Her exit from mixed martial arts was swift and relatively quiet, preventing Rousey and her fans from getting too close. Rousey had revealed this earlier this year she remained silent due to shaking Since he tried to start a professional wrestling career, his concussion history goes back much further than MMA.

“If injuries weren’t an issue, things would have been completely different,” Rousey told CBS Sports. “People don’t talk about cumulative neurological injury in MMA. It’s something that everyone is dealing with at a different pace. I started dealing with it at the age of six. I got into swimming very early. Injuries had started as soon as two children hit their heads while doing backstroke or hit the wall while doing backstroke.

“I started doing judo at a young age and I kept getting hurt regularly and several times a year and I wasn’t allowed to speak or say anything about it. As a fighter, you’re not supposed to show any weakness. “We shouldn’t or shouldn’t talk about things like that or the inevitable neurological decline that comes from getting a headshot, a lot of people talk about it as if it’s an excuse or a weakness.”

Rousey suffered only two losses in her final two fights in her world-renowned career, both by knockout. It was a sign that a lifetime of cumulative head trauma was catching up to him and a warning to his long-term future.

Rousey said, “I have a whole list to think about in my life, and you never realize until decades later how many times you get hit at once.” “But I also don’t feel like I would be able to serve the sport or the division properly if I stuck around for too long. I had reached a point where I knew I literally couldn’t tolerate those head impacts. Can and continue to compete at the same level This doesn’t do the sport any favors, it’s a bad look on women’s MMA in general.

MMA fighters are extremely stubborn. Major UFC stars like Dustin Poirier, Alexander Volkanovski and even controversial former champion Sean Strickland have begun to open up in a banner year for mental health. Many fighters have moved away from full-power, full-contact fighting toward a training style more conducive to longevity. Rousey claims that fighter welfare is still severely neglected and warns about the long-term dangers of the fight sport.

Rousey said, “You see that happen with a lot of fighters as they get older. It takes less and less time to hurt them and knock them out.” “It’s not just that they’re losing matches. Their brains get injured. It’s going to harm them later on in their lives and they end up being drunk or abusive or in wheelchairs and all this.” Get caught up in things and no one talks about it.

“I wish more people did this because the longevity of our fighters is at stake. I want all these fighters to grow old gracefully and handle their grandkids and stuff like that, not one of those cautionary tales. Become one.”

MMA is in Rousey’s rearview mirror but she will never completely walk away from martial arts. This is quite the opposite. Retirement has allowed Rousey to reconnect with the skills that took her to the Olympics, making her the UFC’s first women’s champion and legitimate mainstream attraction.

Rousey is actively training a student and has long-term plans to open a free dojo in Hawaii with her husband, Travis Browne. Even his graphic novel, which launches a Kickstarter campaign on July 25 that includes alternate cover art and the ability for fans to join in on the story, symbolizes his relationship with martial arts.

Rousey said, “Fight choreography in comics hasn’t been done like this before. You don’t often see grappling sequences and things like that.” “It’s a lot of, ‘Punch, kick, energy beam!’ I love ‘Dragon Ball Z’ more than anything, but I’m just saying that in this medium, the action is shown in a limited way and so the action that we did in it, I choreographed it and displayed it. And I taped it.”

Rousey joins comic book artist Mike Deodato Jr. — who has worked for DC Comics and Marvel on properties like “The Avengers,” “Batman,” “Captain America” ​​and “Wonder Woman” — and former Marvel editor-in-chief. Lead Axel Alonso is going to tell a fictional story inspired by his life and career.

“It was right when my husband and I were trying to get pregnant for the first time. I think it was just getting into the dilemma of bringing a baby into a hostile world and me getting pregnant during COVID and all these things.” It’s a crazy thing to have a child and bring them into the world and to believe that you can guide them through everything that’s happening.

“It was something that was inside of me as a martial artist and a hopeless romantic. If you read it it’s a lot of the same, it’s me and my husband and our relationship, but taken to the nth degree. To try. What’s more difficult than baby and no one helping you? Oh, trying to have a baby and everyone trying to kill you, but not taking yourself seriously at all. “Doing so with humor and a sweet love story.”